About “Keep Ya Head Up”

2Pac may have been a gangsta, but he had feelings too! This is a feminist anthem from Pac, with references to pro-choice politics and what one might call “rape culture”.

In a 1995 interview with LA Times journalist Chuck Philips, Tupac said:

I think the shit that I say, no one else says. Who was writing about Black women before ‘Keep Ya Head Up?’ Now everybody got a song about Black women. Who was writing about that when I was writing about that? Who was writing about their own problems? I wasn’t talking [blah blah blah], I was talking my real problems. I was really having problems with police. I was really having problems with life and just being Black and why the hell we gotta get stepped on so much? But then I’m making it, I thought I was successful when I’m still getting stepped on. How come I got a boot-print on my back and I’m successful? I just couldn’t believe that. So instead of me just bugging out and doing a post office move and just shooting everything up and going to jail for a million years, I just said, ‘Fuck it. I’m in here rapping. Why not just rap about some shit that’s really happening?’